


The Delirium of a Peridot

by Xaire



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 21:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12639204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xaire/pseuds/Xaire
Summary: A common Peridot loses her sanity as she's plagued by voices in her head.





	The Delirium of a Peridot

"Enclosed in a shrine  
locked away inside my mind  
I walk in the darkness and neon lights  
delirium will take me away"

-"Delirium" by Lacuna Coil

 

..............

 

The voices…always…the voices.

The screaming…hateful…voices.

They howled…everyday…ever since she could remember…they were there!

Alone…she heard the voices alone…and she suffered alone!

…and the Peridot had no idea why!

In the farthest reaches of the galaxy, lightyears away from the planet the rebel group "Crystal Gems" have claimed, there was another world that fell prey to the Gem Empire. A lonely, desert dwarf, only worthy of becoming a Kindergarten. Endless expanses of dust covered ground, occasionally interrupted by a lone mountain or coral-like creatures that have been dead since the Empire's arrival, dominated the land. The only activity here was the Kindergarten, where injector drones drilled into the stagnant ground and dispensed the gemetic fluid destined to become Quartz's or Lapis'. Amongst the buzzing ongoing of the injectors, the Peridot stood perfectly still, temporarily lost in her own hell where the voices tormented her. Her green eyes staring a million miles into the nothing and her lips moved in the slightest way as to suggest the softest whispers. Sometimes she spoke to the ones that lives in her head and sometimes she mimicked them, not knowing what else to do. It was her job to oversee the Kindergarten operation, yet she stood like a dead organism, asking herself the same question she asked herself a hundred times: Why me?

"Peridot."

The voice rang in her ears.

"Peridot!"

The voice shrieked again.

"PERIDOT!"

She quickly realized that this was not one of the usual voices, but Holly Blue Agate, the liaison between peasant Gems and the great Blue Diamond. Slowly, the Peridot's empty eyes turned to meet the furious gaze of her superior.

The Agate growled "Did you not get the notice from Delta Kindergarten?!"

The Peridot only gave her a blank stare. Her lips moved only the slightest bit, but no voice came out. The Peridot was unsure she still had a voice.

"Answer me!" The Agate roared, shocking the Peridot enough to answer.

"No madam…my apologies."

"You'd be lucky to apologize to Blue Diamond herself after your blatant display of incompetence, but due to the minor nature of the issue, I'll let this slide. The drilling unit on injector IU-441D in Delta Kindergarten is malfunctioning. I should not have to tell you to go fix it!"

No response. The voices shrieked.

"NOW!" Agate roared.

The Peridot jumped back into reality. Her sight and hearing briefly caught her surroundings again, although, she could barely hear the Agate through the voices. Mindlessly, she ran in the direction of Kindergarten Delta. The voices still howled.

….

The Peridot labored on the injector (…come…) for hours. Her hands trembled as she handled the sensitive tools, rearranging and removing, placing and bolting, unbolting and snipping (…no…), but all this she did while hardly being aware. The voices shrieked in her (…please…) head, begging her, diminishing her, scalding her, mocking her, beckon her. She barely noticed the streams of tears that (…kill…) poured down her cheeks. She was vaguely (…you…) aware that reality (…damned…) was quickly slipping away (…why…) from her. The voices (…hell…) drowned out everything (…sufferer…) around her (…why…). Her head (…why…) throbbed. Her palms (…why…) were slick. She (…why…) began to (…why…) whimper. (….why…) She clutched her head (…why…). She fell (…why…) to the dirt (…why…), curled up into (…why…) into a fetal position (…why…) and begged the voices to (…why…) stop.

"Whoa! What's going on lil' green?' The Peridot didn't hear the Amethyst calling to her. "What the hell are you doing? Come on, stop it! What the hell?!"

…(…why…) The (…why…) delirium (…why…) hit (…why…) its (…why…) peak (…why…). Her (…why…) mind (…why…) crumbled.

The Peridot sat up and looked at the Amethyst that approached her, she didn't see the familiar purple and blue Gem she saw countless times. Before the Peridot's twisted eyes, the Amethyst dissolved into a shrieking black mass that crawled across a sooty, black ground littered with Gem shards and the bones of organic beings. Two red eyes glared out of the endless black and into the Peridot's tormented soul. The sky above turned blood-red and the stars became black raindrops that fell and seared her quasi-physical skin like acid. Before she knew it, the black mass enveloped her, sucking her into a dark oblivion. She heard in the distance "…kill…yourself…".

The Peridot shrieked so loud the Amethyst staggered backwards in shock. The massive, warrior Gem was, in some way, terrified of the mad, hysterical Peridot before her shrieking "PLEASE! STOP! STOP! LEAVE ME ALONE!". The Amethyst didn't expect it when the Peridot attacked her, knocking her to the ground and started beating her gemstone, slowly cracking it. "Stop it! Stop!' The Amethyst screamed, pushing off her assailant. The Peridot stood again and continued attacking the imaginary enemy. A final blow struck the Amethyst's gemstone and it shattered into glitter under the Peridot's fist.

The Peridot fell to her knees. Slowly, she began to see fractions of reality. She saw the scattered, purple shards before her, but before she could fully grasp what she had done, an avenging Quartz destroyed her physical form, locking her in her own personal hell for the next four hours.

…...

In the oblivion of her gemstone, she saw her past. In the beginning, long ago, she came out of ground of a distant planet, young and naïve. She had sanity then, when the truths of her world were unknown to her. Not long after, she colonized her first planet, a peaceful salt-dwarf inhabited by a race of flying, plant-like creatures that made gentle, ratting sounds that sounded like music to the young Peridot. She thought they were the most beautiful and most magnificent things the universe had to offer, but the beauty ended when the ships came down and the injectors that the Peridot had activated began their task. Within weeks, the whole Plant-race was reduced to rotting heaps on a dry, barren ground. She remembered walking in this graveyard and found herself cradling the head appendage of a dying Plant. She held the bluish-green bulb in her lap, stroking the thin hairs on its "neck" as she looked into its one, colorful eye. She remembered she cried and told the creature it will be all right even though she knew it wasn't. The creature sung its final, sad rattle and the Plant race was extinct. That final rattle echoed in her head every day since that moment. With every planet she colonized, new voices screeched in her head and they never let her rest or enjoy peace of mind again.

….

She later reformed in a Gem prison cell. The voices, like always, still tortured her. She sat in the corner, arms wrapped around her knees, face buried behind them, and she cried. She quietly begged the voices to stop. All hope is lost, she thought. Her sanity faded out of existence, her view on reality was shredded to pieces, and all she knew now was the pain those damned voices brought her.

All around her, in the cracks and pits in the wall, demons and prowlers lurked, watching her and reaching for her.

Suddenly, the most amazing thing happened. The voices the visions…stopped. All was quiet. For a single moment they stopped begging and scalding and torturing and mocking and beckoning. They just stopped. The lurkers around her vanished and she only saw the bland, pitted walls of her cell. Only one voice remained and it was gentle and spoke with a caring tone.

"Peridot…" the voice said. Tears continued to stream down the Peridot's face, but they were tears of joy and bliss. "It's okay, Peridot. We can end it. You will die soon. You can finally be at peace. All you have to do is let go." The idea passed through the Peridot's head like a bullet and she knew it was true. She was on death row and she couldn't be happier.

On cue, a pair of Jaspers came to drag her to oblivion. One grabbed each of the Peridot's arms and took her away. The Peridot was dragged down a dimly lit hallway and to the Shatter Room. Along away, she never made sound or even struggled. The voices returned to torment her again, but she didn't care. They would soon die along with her. She simply closed her eyes and allowed it to happen.

The Jaspers entered the Shatter Room and lied down their prisoner on the execution table. In the corner, an Obsidian executioner waited, silently peering at the Peridot from underneath her hood. The Jaspers took their leave, allowing the Obsidian to do her job, yet she did nothing. The Obsidian simply stood with her axe at hand, studying the Peridot's face.

Silence took over for minutes as the two Gems studied each other. The Obsidians posture slackened and she finally spoke.

"Do you hear them too?" the Obsidian asked, her voice surprisingly soft.

The Peridot gazed at the Obsidian in shock, fresh tears clouding her eyes. "Do you?" she asked with a broken voice.

In response, the Obsidian sat down on the table next to the Peridot and removed her hood, revealing her black hair and purple skin. "All the time." She said with gentle, watery eyes. She placed one hand over the Peridot's. She looked her in the eyes and said "I understand. Death can never be washed away. The only escape from them is death. If you want, I can free you."

The Peridot broke down and cried. "Yes! Please!"

The Obsidian stood and hoisted her axe above her head. She gave her new and only friend one final glance as tears wetted her cheeks. She bore the axe down upon the peridot's gemstone, ending her existence.

She suffered no more.

….

During her much-to-common alone time, the obsidian often found herself sitting against the wall of the Shatter Room, listening to the malicious symphony in her head. Of the thousands of shrieking voices, she only focused on one: the comforting voice that once belonged to Peridot. It was the only voice she loved.

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, there's some character art on Deviantart. If you're interested, look up the artist "Xaire5000".


End file.
